Glass-Embedded Sensors Roll Out Likely by a ‘Top Smartphone Vendor’ Next Year

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If there’s one technology for which the tech-world have kept us waiting for long, then it’s definitely the glass-embedded fingerprint sensors. The prospect of such a sensor rose even before bezel-less became a trend in smartphones. But despite the latter popping up even in all the categories of smartphones, glass-embedded sensors still appears to be a distant reality, or maybe not.

Synaptics, the manufacturer and supplier of almost entire glass panels in the smartphone industry revealed its in-display fingerprint sensors almost a year ago. However, the FS9100 optical fingerprint was revealed with no assurance on when it would appear on smartphones. But we are approaching closer to that as revealed by Synaptics.

The company has announced that it has started the mass-production of its in-display optical fingerprint sensors, which from now on will be called Clear ID. The fact that the sensors are now being mass-produced is a clear indication that it will be showing up on a smartphone by next year. But as to keep us more anticipated, Synaptics has also revealed that one among the top five OEMs are associated with the same.

That points towards the list that includes Samsung and Apple in addition to Huawei, Oppo/Vivo, and Xiaomi. It’s too early to predict whether Apple would have its next iPhone embedded with glass sensors. Moreover, it had only replaced its Touch ID with Face ID in the iPhone X. To bring back the Touch ID, although in an advanced form, will require persistent negative feedback of its face-recognition technology from the users. But that definitely doesn’t sound happening at the moment.

As with Samsung, who are expected to launch the Galaxy S9 device early next year, we don’t expect any rush. The allegedly leaked images moot for a rear-fingerprint sensor. That would mean that if Samsung is the one associated with Synpatics, they would have the glass-embedded sensors launched with the Galaxy Note 9 device, which is not to be unveiled prior to the end of first-half of 2018.

We couldn’t also omit any of the Chinese manufacturers from the possible list, especially when considering the eagerness shown by the companies in embracing new technologies. To recall, Xiaomi were near-technically the first to introduce true bezel-less smartphone. Rumors have previously associated them with Synaptics for pressure-sensing glass sensors. So chances are high that Xiaomi could pull out the magic by introducing the new technology to the world.

Be it any manufacturer that introduces the technology, we do have the assurance that the technology would be showing up soon.